The Ghost and the Darkness Volume 1 (The Fallocaust Series Book 2) (88 page)

Caligula and Nico?

What the hell?

Why did they need me and why couldn’t they come and get me themselves? I hadn’t seen Nico since he had made me leave him in the sewer. I would have been thrilled if he and Clig dropped by for a beer and a few lines.

“This makes no sense. What do they need me for? They can come here and –” I stopped talking when Chally shook his head. “Then what is it?” I demanded, starting to feel my chest tighten with apprehension. I didn’t know what was going on and it was frustrating and a bit intimidating. This new kid knew something and his way of communicating it was driving me nuts.

Chally got the piece of paper again and started to write. But halfway through he stopped and closed his eyes for a second. By now the anxiety was starting to eat my stomach, a cancerous pit was starting to form.

It was like he abandoned what he was writing. Instead he took my hand and started leading me out the door. I followed him until he got to the doorway.

“No... no...” I shook my head. “I ain’t going anywhere with you. I don’t know you and the last people I was alone with kidnapped me and held me for ransom. I’m waking Garrett.”

“Ah!” Chally actually made a noise. He shook his head vigorously and swept the room in his paranoid gaze. He inhaled a shaky breath and pushed the note into my hand. Like this was causing him pain he held my hand before snapping it away.

I opened the note, more confused than ever.

Nero has Reaver.

“WHAT!” I exploded. The paper fell from my fingers. “Who are you? What the fuck? How do you know? TELL ME!”

“Reno?” Garrett’s surprised voice suddenly sounded but I didn’t care.

I turned to Chally. The kid backed away from me until his back hit the wall. He held up his hands and clenched his teeth.

I turned around. “Nero has –” Suddenly the kid put his hand over my mouth, jumping on my back as he did. I spun around and grabbed his hands to try and pry him off but he was like a spider monkey.

Faced with this odd scene Garrett looked at us both bewildered before he ran over and pried Chally off of me. The kid squawking and thrashing, talking in a variation of tones like he so desperately wanted to talk. “Calm down, little thing. What’s going on?”

“Ah-ah!” Chally protested. I stared at him, wondering why he didn’t want Garrett to know... Garrett was on our side.

And I would need him. “He just told me that Nero has Reaver. That Caligula and Nico want me to go with them... to...” I looked at Chally. “To save him? They want me to help save him?”

Chally stared at me, his arms being held back by Garrett. He stopped struggling and nodded.

When Garrett let Chally go he started to quickly sign to Garrett.

My fiancé watched him go at it, then started to swear.

“Is he telling the truth?” I demanded.

Garrett paused and shook his head. “No, no he isn’t.” My heart fell. “It must be a trick of Silas... just go to bed, love.”

Despair washed over me but the more I processed Garrett’s words the more I didn’t believe them. “Garrett... you... you’re lying aren’t you. They caught Reaver didn’t they?” Where was Killian then? Fuck... fuck. Oh god, they better not have hurt him.

Garrett ignored me and grabbed his remote phone. I paused, wondering if he was calling Nero.

“Yes, Luca... send a car, You’ll be picking up Chally –”

“No!” I grabbed the phone out of Garrett’s hand and closed it. “You’re damn well lying to me aren’t you? Garrett, tell me the truth!”

But he was ignoring me. The knowledge of what was going down around me brought me more panic. Like a thousand loose strings had been dropped around me and I had twenty seconds to tie them all back together.

I had to know.

Garrett’s eyes were heavy. He looked at me for a brief moment before he held a hand up to his mouth. Garrett swallowed hard and I could tell he was thinking of every reason not to tell me.

But I was his fiancé.

“They...” Garrett looked over; I did too and saw Chally continue to sign to Garrett. The kid’s face the photo of anxiety and his hands a trembling mess. Each sign was just a blur of movement to me but Garrett seemed to understand.

“Reaver was caught when he was taking Chally to a town to sell. Chally pretended to be Killian and Killian, he thinks, escaped. The last thing Chally heard was Kessler giving Reaver to Nero, without Silas knowing. This was a couple weeks ago. Caligula told Kessler Chally wasn’t Killian and took Chally him-himself.”

Then my fiancé paused as Chally continued to sign. His mouth twisted like he was physically trying to stop himself from saying what he was going to next. “It was Reaver who broke your ransom code, not Caligula. He told Caligula where to find you, before he was given to Nero.”

My jaw hit the floor. My temples hammered and a white light seemed to creep into my vision.

It was true? It was really true? There was nothing else to say then. Wordlessly, I turned around and grabbed my jacket.

“NO!” Before I could register the desperate cry from Garrett he was grabbing my hand and yanking it away from my jacket. “You are not going! NO!”

I tried to keep my emotions in check, I really did. But hearing Garrett’s voice break in front of me made my eyes burn. Especially because I knew – I was leaving.

I wrestled with him for the jacket and when he pulled it from my grasp I grabbed my thick leather one instead. “I gotta go, love.”

My fiancé shook his head back and forth. “No... no, no. You’re not leaving. You are not going, it’s too dangerous! I forbid it!” He jumped in front of me and blocked the door.

I pushed down the shock at his actions. He seemed on the verge of mania with how he pressed himself against the door. His panicked eyes burrowing into me, begging and pleading.

“I have to save Reaver!” My voice broke as I said those words to him, each one hitting him like a javelin through his heart. “Come with me if you must but I am going.”

Garrett shook his head back and forth. I saw tears glistening in his eyes as they swept the room. Like he was looking for something that might help plead his case.

“I can’t go, if they catch me I’ll loose everything and so will Elish. You... you know that. I can’t go...” Garrett screamed, his teeth clenched and his face tight. “They will kill you if they find you. I can’t lose you again. I CAN’T! I can’t go through that again. Please, Otter, NO!”

“I... I’m sorry...” I whispered. My body was shaking so hard I thought I would fall down. I didn’t know how I was still standing when my world was crumbling beneath my feet.

There was nothing to be said, nothing to be done. When it came to my Reaver there was no room for discussion. I was Reaver’s friend first, I was his fiancé second.

“I love you, Gare... I’m sorry.”

I grabbed the handle of the door to open it.

To my shock Garrett grabbed my hand... hard.

“I said no.”

I was momentarily stunned as I heard a sharpened edge to his voice. “I said no, and you will obey me.”

What?
I looked at him, his face only a foot from mine.

Holy shit.

Garrett’s eyes were two slabs of emerald lit on fire. They pierced me and burned me alive with just one hard, scathing look.

I had seen that look before but not on him. I had seen that on his king and master the night I told
Asher
I didn’t want to have sex.

“You... you can’t –” My tone turned to mush as his eyes ripped me apart. I could taste the atmosphere changing around us. The high-strung mood quickly turning dark and hostile.

“I am Prince Garrett Dekker, and a greywaster will not tell me what I can and cannot do.” Garrett’s tone dropped to a threatening dark level. I found myself backing away as he moved from the door and started slowly stalking towards me; his movements holding the same terrifying grace that his master’s had. “Until I say my vows to you, you are my cicaro, and I say you will not leave this apartment.”

I yelped as he grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me close to him. His hand twisted my shirt as his face blanked. The emotional eyes dark and dead, but at the same time I had never seen them so brilliant. They were overflowing with energy, a caustic acid that could burn your skin like he was some sort of Titan.

He was a chimera... he was Silas’s creation.

My head swam and suddenly the only thought in my mind was to get away from him. Get away from this chimera. I wasn’t safe in here with him; if this was a rare state he might not know how to control it. I have seen crazed chimeras before and people died when they let their bloodlust take them.

Another twist of my shirt, this one starting to restrict the air in my throat. I struggled but as soon as he saw my hand reach up to grab his he snapped it up first and crushed it in his grip. “If I have to break your legs, Reno, I will. Do not test me. If you think I will let you go into a chimera and legionary-filled base to get him... you do not know me. If I have to hurt you to protect you... I will.”

All I could do was stare back at him, stare back in shock and terrifying amazement as I witnessed Garrett in this rare form.

I nodded and at that recognition he dropped me. I stumbled and watched Garrett as he took a step back. He looked over at Chally. “Tell Harvard to take you to Olympus. Get out of my fucking sight.”

Chally, who had been staring dumbfounded at us, nodded before he turned and fled out the door. Garrett went into his bedroom.

I stood there just staring, not knowing what to do with myself. Not knowing if I should make a break for it.

I started to make plans to leave once Garrett fell asleep when I heard a distinct click.

I jerked away when I felt something on my neck. “Stay still,” Garrett said, his voice acidic and biting.

He belted the leather collar on me and secured it with a lock. Then, with a chained leash still in hand, he led me to my bedroom.

“If you’re going to chain me like the fucking Crimstones did, at least have the dignity to put me in a room separate from you,” I said to him.

Wordlessly he led me to my old bedroom, before he chained my collar to the foot of the bed.

I wanted to say volumes to him in that moment. I wanted to ask him if he was proud of himself for doing this to me but all I could do was stare; drinking in the dark side of my fiancé but at the same time – ready to fake it until he unchained me.

Because once he did I was gone.

Reaver had come for me.

In the only way he could. Reaver had saved me. And I had to save my best friend, the man who, if it wasn’t for Killian... might’ve been my fiancé one day instead of Garrett.

I had been joined to that man since he was two years old. I had grown up with him. He had been my first friend, my first kiss. We shared between us first kills as well as first sexual experiences. I was bound to that man.

The moment I had a chance... I would come for him and I would save him.

The words started to come to my lips to plead my case, to tell Garrett I would stay put. But as soon as he secured me he turned and left the room. I heard a slam and in the background the television turned off and then the lights.

And I was alone. All alone.

I fell into a troubled sleep that night. Nightmares slipped in easily but they didn’t leave with the same grace. They stayed and sunk into my brain like poison, and my distraught and anxious mind soaked up each thought like a sponge.

My eyes opened when I heard the rattling of a door knob. Immediately my brow knitted and my eyes hardened. Though I was still half-asleep I mentally prepared myself for a fight. Because if he let me out and assumed everything would go back to normal... he was going to taste what being engaged to a greywaster really meant.

Then the door opened and immediately I shut my eyes, wondering if I could play possum just so I wouldn’t have to talk to him. I liked that idea so I relaxed my body and started to play pretend.

“He’s in here. Keep your voice down.”

I opened my eyes. That... was not Garrett.

I jumped up quickly, the chain on my neck pulling as I stumbled to my feet.

At first my heart froze in shock and fear as I saw the two masked intruders in my doorway. The Crimstones and my abduction still the first line infantry of thoughts in my head.

They must have known where my mind was going because one of them held out his hands in a
calm down
gesture. But it wasn’t until the second one took his mask off that the fear turned into a flood of relief.

It was Nico. Without a word he fumbled with a set of keys, beside him Caligula also drew his ski mask up.

“Here to break me, eh? Again?” I smirked as Nico started unlocking my collar. Caligula pulled something black out of his pocket and handed it to me. My heart jumped when I realized he was giving me a gun. It had been too long since I handled a gun, too long.

“Chally told us right away... about how Garrett reacted.” Caligula tossed me a jacket. There was the sound of shifting chains as Nico dropped my collar onto the bed. “We’re here to bust you out. Nero’s had Reaver for too long and eventually King Silas is going to find out.”